


That Tall Child Looks Terrible! Get Some Rest, Tall Child!

by IRegretNothingAndEverything



Series: Teenage Joshua [1]
Category: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Fluff, Humor, Teenage Joshua, it's just soft <3, the science team think that joshua is a child still, they are wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26623894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IRegretNothingAndEverything/pseuds/IRegretNothingAndEverything
Summary: The Science Team, seeing the baby picture assume that Joshua is still a young child. Joshua is in fact seventeen.
Relationships: Bubby/Dr. Coomer, for like a sentence - Relationship
Series: Teenage Joshua [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936888
Comments: 5
Kudos: 208





	That Tall Child Looks Terrible! Get Some Rest, Tall Child!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so, au was started by purplecatghostposts on tumblr! It's a fun lil au that took hold of my brain and I just... brrrrrr here you go!

“So, uh, Josh might be awake when you come in? Don’t be surprised if he is, he tends to keep pretty weird hours.” Gordon fumbled with his keys, which he only had because G-Man very carefully handed them to him before he left, leaving the entire science team-including one very persistent skeleton-to follow Gordon home. 

Not that he minded, really. It was... going to be a bit of a struggle to figure out where everyone was going to sleep if they were staying longer than a night, but Benrey-Gordon assumed the skeleton was Benrey, and, at this point, stopped questioning his capability of coming back-didn’t sleep as far as Gordon knew, and also was a skeleton, so that just left Coomer, Bubby, and Tommy, and the couch had room for at least Coomer and Bubby, if not Tommy around the bend of it, if Gordon’s intuition about them was wrong. 

They were holding hands. Gordon doubted he was wrong. 

“Whose been-been watching Joshua?” Tommy asked, and Gordon frowned at the question, quickly going back to any conversations they had had about Joshua in Black Mesa and realized, very quickly, that they did not know a lot about his son. He hid a smile as he finally got the door unlocked. 

“No one.” He stepped into the house, eyes darting around. There was a bit of trash build up, though no more than a day, and they were both guilty of forgetting that. From his view from the front door, which granted him a bit of a peek into the kitchen, Gordon didn’t seen any dishes in or around the sink, so either there weren’t that many, or they had gotten done at some point. 

“No one?” Coomer asked, and Gordon nodded, flicking on the light above the hallway, looking towards Joshua’s door, which was cracked just a bit, the lights off, but his LED lights on a green. The door was flung open, and Gordon subtly shifted his stance, preparing for- 

“DAD!” Joshua ran from his room, colliding with Gordon, and Gordon managed not to fall over, wrapping his arms around his son’s back, as Joshua bent over to hug him tightly, Gordon standing on tip toes just in case. As Joshua pulled away, Gordon glanced over to the science team for a moment, and barely managed to hold back laughter at the shocked looks on their faces. 

Benrey’s jaw had almost completely fallen off. 

“You’re okay.” Gordon turned his attention back to Joshua, smiling. 

“Yeah, bub, I’m fine. Well...” He glanced to his stump, Joshua’s eyes tracking there as well, before Gordon looked back to Joshua’s face. “I’m alive... relatively okay.” Joshua’s eyes tracked across his face, and relaxed after a moment, hugging him tightly again, before standing up properly to look towards the science team. 

The only one Joshua didn’t beat in height was Tommy, though Tommy was tall enough to be considered an outlier in this. Joshua might be as well, but he wasn’t over seven foot like Tommy was. When Tommy straightened, there was a collective head tilt upwards just a bit, and Gordon snorted, which only cause Benrey’s head to clack back down to him, jaw bone back in place. 

They all seemed to realize something at the same time. This was Joshua. He very much was not the chubby cheeked baby in the picture in Gordon’s locker. This Joshua was tall and lanky, messy hair that matched Gordon’s, only cut short around his shoulders, rather than like Gordon, whose hair fell down his back. This Joshua had a bridge piercing, which seemed to be what Benrey focused on, though, with the lack of eyes, who really knew what Benrey was looking at. This Joshua was also not a baby. That seemed to be the main thing focused on. 

“But... the picture...” Bubby mumbled, and Gordon laughed softly. 

“Yeah, no, I only had baby pictures on hand when I was setting up the locker.” Gordon shrugged. “And we, uh, we had more important things to worry about than me telling you my son is seventeen.” 

There was a flicker in Coomer’s eyes, and he turned to Gordon. “But you’re twenty-seven.” 

“If you want to go by bloodlines, I’m his nephew. But any other way? I’m his son.” Joshua’s eyes darted between them quickly with a half-glare, and, luckily, they had the sense to drop it. Gordon sighed softly, then glanced at the time. 

“You... should be in bed.” Gordon said, tracking the dark eye bags under Joshua’s eyes. 

“I don’t have anything tomorrow, and you’ve been missing for a week. I think that I can go to bed an hour later than normal.” Joshua’s arms crossed over his chest. “You’re missing an arm, and you brought an entire menagerie, including a skeleton.” 

“Oh good, you can see him.” Gordon said simply, turning to go into the kitchen to see if they had any soda. He knew they would be wanting some. 

“What do you mean I can see him?” Joshua called after him, and Gordon let himself laugh quietly, popping open the fridge to look. This next hour was going to be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Hewwo! Hope you enjoyed! My tungle is @e-bubby if y'all wanna check it out! I post all my writing both here and there, so if reading on tumblr suits you better, it's there!!


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